John Krafcik, president of Santa Monica car buying and selling platform TrueCar Inc., says there’s a strong correlation between states that vote Republican and high truck sales. Based on this, TrueCar is predicting that Republicans will come out ahead in next week’s midterm election.

Car and truck sales have reliably tracked with voting preferences in previous elections, with Democratic voters favoring smaller vehicles, Krafcik said. His company spent a couple of weeks looking at their own data on car and truck sales in the 10 states that RealClearPolitics.com identifies as swing states in the upcoming election. TrueCar found that in six of those states, buying patterns indicate a higher potential for Republican gains and Democratic losses.

In Arkansas, for example, incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor is Democrat, but 60 percent of Arkansans are truck drivers and the best-selling car is a Ford F Series. Krafcik said the truck preference indicates there is “a risk” that Democrats will lose the state.

Based on their own data and this car-versus-truck methodology, TrueCar predicted that most swing states will shift to the right.

“Our bold call is that trucks and SUVs will outnumber cars and minivans at polling stations in swing states this year, putting Republicans back in control of the Senate for the first time since 2006,” Krafcik said.

When asked why TrueCar would conduct a study like this, Krafcik acknowledged it’s not meant to be taken too seriously, but also said there’s real data here.

“TrueCar is a big data company,” he said. “So we thought we would try to apply big data to the upcoming election. We’re data scientists, not political analysts. It wasn’t meant to be completely serious, but it may be correct.”